Customer Reviews

Vacation ownership set to grow

Thailand is high on Absolute Groupâ€'s agenda for vacation home ownership.

It
is selling the concept to wealthy Thais through its subsidiary,
Absolute Vacation Club, and reckons Thai customers could be in the top
rank in three years.

The group, announced, last week, it has
invested in six properties due to open by 2011. In addition it will
seek joint ventures with hotel partners to draw additional real estate
into its vacation ownership programme.

This year, Thai Absolute Vacation Club offers 22 resorts, but it has joint ventures with 2,000 resorts, worldwide.

It
will open Absolute Bangla Suites and Absolute Nakalay Beach Resort both
in Phuket, this year. Then in 2010, Absolute Sansabai Resort and Spa in
Phuket, Yoo Samui and Platinum Jomtien will open followed in 2011, with
Yoophuket.

Its initial investment is in Pattaya, Samui and
Phuket, but the group will also expand to Chiang Mai, Kanchanaburi, Hua
Hin, Khao Yai and Saraburi.

Bangkok hotels are no strangers to
time-share. They were a popular target in theÂ late 1990s for vacation
club operators, who convinced owners to put whole floors of their
underperforming real estate under the clubâ€'s management during a slump
in business to the capital.

Absolute Group is the latest to join
the trend with its Thai Absolute Vacation Club that opened in April.
Since its debut it claims to have sold 250 memberships to Thais and
expects to achieve 2,000 by the end of the year, representing Bt500
million worth.

Thai customers pay into the club to own time at a variety of resorts worldwide.

By
2011, it hopes to raise Thai membership to representÂ 22% of its
membership, followed by EuropeansÂ (21%), Russian (19%), Australian
(17%), Chinese (16%), American (4%) and Middle East (1%).

Absolute
group chairman, Bryan Lunt, believes Thais are ready to pay huge sums
to be part of time-share: â€œThais buy condominium or houses in resort
destinations. Each time they go for holiday, they have to spend time
and energy cleaning them. But buying into a ownership programme, means
they always have a clean room, well maintained and they can change
their holiday locations to other resorts in the network .â€

Mr Lunt ha, apparently, overlooked the fact that wealthy Thais have servants who clean and maintain their properties.

Vacation
ownership packages vary according to the room type, length of annual
stay, length of contract starting from Bt250,000 Each year, customers
have toÂ pay an annual maintenance fee. Membership can always be sold
or transferred.

Target groups are age between 30 to 62 years old, from senior management up, with families.